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No. 44,874. PATENTED NOV. 1, 186&. R..-P. MAGOY & H. L. HERWIG, METAL RULER.

iifizamejf UNITED STATE ls PATENT O FICE.

METAL RULER.

Specification forming part of Letters Patent No. 44,874, dated November 1, 1864.

To all whom it may concern:

, Be it known that We, R. F. MACOY and H. L. UERWIG, of the city, county, and State of -New York, have invented a new and useful Improvement in the Construction of Metal Rulers; and we do hereby declare and ascer-,

tain the same, referring to the accompanying.

drawings, in whichi v Figure l is a perspective view. Fig. 2,is a cross-section at right angles to its'length.

The purpose of our invention is to form a cheap, light ruler of metal, which will be firm and stiff, while it embodies every essential requisite of a ruler, and in addition thereto it can be employed to fold and tear paper, &c.

The construction is as follows: We employ a plain piece of sheet metal, out to the proper length and width for the intended ruler. One

elge of this piece of metal we corrugate, as

shown in the drawings, with two (more or less) folds, the upper one being made to project farther forward than that below, as seen in the drawings. The curve on the return of the second. corrugation is MIME-l0 incline upward so as to leave a trough, a, to hold any fluid that may by chance be deposited on the upper projection or edge of the'ruler, and the two edges in front are so far apart as to prevent any fluid from the upper edgecatching on the lower one until it is deposited within the gutter or trough a. These corrugations make the rule stiff and firm when made of Very stiff metal. The thin edge opposite the corrugations is bent downward, as seen in the figures, and it can be readily and conveniently used to tear paper, 850.

We are aware that a thin, narrow horizontal groove has before been made in the edge of a ruler to absorb any fluid which may be deposited on the edge of the ruler by capillary attraction, but this is found not to answer the purpose'where there is a large deposit, and especially in metal '-rulers,'iu which it is necessary to hate a trough U1 gutter lower at the rear than at the front or edge; hence the necessity of our construction, and inasmuch as in our ruler the edges are rounded in front without the gutter, the fluid deposited on the upper projection would find its way onto the paper below.

Having thus fully described our invention, what we claim therein, and desire to secure by Letters Patent, is-

1. The metal ruler, constructed as and for the purposes set forth.

2. Forming a gutter, as specified, in the edge of the ruler, having its rear'portion below the front edge thereof, so as to receive and hold any fluid deposited therein by gravitation, as herein specified.

ROBT. F. MACOY. W. L. HERWIG.

, Witnesses:

(J. M. NoRTHRUP, J. J. GREENOUGH. 

